Legal Commentary

AP National Poll Shows Obama Catching Up, Dueling Texas Polls

By Jeralyn

A new national AP poll out today finds Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a statistical tie.

Overall, Obama has 46 percent to Clinton's 43 percent, a virtual tie. Clinton had a slight 5 point lead nationally in early February.

The AP stresses the increase in white male support for Obama. He's also increased among youth, liberals, those earning more than $50k a year and voters with college or graduate degrees. But, Hillary maintains a big lead in her core constituency as well.

Clinton maintains robust leads among some groups that have been cornerstones of her candidacy, including those age 65 and up, white women and people earning under $50,000 annually.

A CNN Texas Poll out today gives Obama a small lead , 1/2 point outside the margin of error. Hillary leads among Hispanics, Obama leads among Blacks. They are evenly divided among Whites.

With the Texas contest next Tuesday, whites are divided about equally in the new survey, Obama has a large lead among blacks and Clinton is ahead with Hispanics. Democrats and Republicans pick the economy as the top issue they will consider in choosing a candidate. Health care ranks second among Democrats while illegal immigration is No. 2 with Republicans.

[Added: Rasmussen has a Texas poll just out showing Hillary leading Obama by one point.

Clinton is viewed favorably by 78% of the state’s voters while Obama is viewed favorably by 72%. That’s a change from last week when Obama earned the higher favorability ratings. Among those who remain undecided, Clinton earns favorably reviews from 65%, Obama from 56%.

[/added.]

In looking at the CNN poll and Quinnepac Ohio poll Big Tent Democrat wrote up earlier today, showing Hillary with a double digit lead over Obama, I see the AP interviewed a different subset for its national poll.

The AP poll interviewed people who identified themselves as Democrats or as leaning towards Democrats -- not those saying they were likely to vote in Democratic primaries or in November. The Quinnepac poll interviewed registered voters who were likely to vote in the Ohio Democratic primary and the CNN poll interviewed those who were likely to vote in the Texas Democratic primary.

Question: Does the polling method matter?

Also, while the Ohio poll queried 1,853 Ohio registered voters and CNN interviewed 861 likely Democratic Texas primary voters, the AP poll interviewed 1,000 nationally in all 50 states. Is that a usual sampling for a national poll?

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 25, 2008 (boomark / email).